Boxing Challenge: Junior Middleweight Madness!

    The non-New York side of the boxing weekend was centered around the junior middleweight division, with two titles being unified and another changing hands in a surprising upset.

The upset occurred in Newcastle, England, when former Olympian Josh Kelly upset Bakhram Murtazaliev to win the IBF version of the title via majority decision.

Kelly entered his pro career with plenty of hype, but was stopped by David Avanesyan and while on a seven fight winning streak, had beaten no one of note, while Murtazaliev had destroyed Tim Tszyu in three rounds fifteen months ago.

Kelly was the quicker and sharper fighter and when he survived a fourth round knockdown, Kelly began to take control and even scored a flash knockdown of his own in the ninth.

My issue is the scoring of Steve Gray, not for his scoring of the fight which was 114-113 Kelly same as mine.

It's for his scoring the final round even. 

I hate even rounds and to score the final round of a close fight even is a travesty.

Had Gray scored the final round for Murtazaliev, the fight would have ended in a draw with thee champion retaining the title.

The other scores were 115-111 for Kelly, a bit wide for my tastes, and even at 113-113.

The other title bout in the 154 pound division was in San Juan, Puerto Rico as Xander Zayas unified the WBA and WBO championships with a split decision over Abass Baraou.

Neither fighter was seriously hurt in the fight but I thought Zayas had the better of the action and agreed with the 116-112 scores on two cards for Zayas and the score for Baraou of 116-112 was surprised.

Sunday was the second card for Paramount+ and Zuffa Boxing for a very strong card.

In the main event, former WBC junior welterweight champion Jose Valenzuela fought through a severe cut to win a unanimous decision over Diego Torres.

Torres had his moments, including wobbling Valenzuela in the sixth round but his superior skils allowed him to counter the walk-down aggression of Torres.

All three scores were 99-91 for Valenzela, which I agreed with.

The co-feature was a cracker as Serhii Bohachuk rebounded from his second defeat to Brandon Adams, to win a split decision over Radzhab Butaev.

This fight was contested in front of the other throughout the fight with Bohachuk landing the harder punches and Butaev scoring more often.

Scorecards read 96-94 twice for Bohachuk and 96-94 for Butaev.

My scores was 95-95 even.

In the opener, former WBC light heavywweight champion Oleksandr Gvozdyk knocked down Radislav Kalajdzic down in the first and fourth rounds and badly hurt him in the fifth to build a huge lead on the cards before a stunning seventh round with Kalajdzic dropping the former champion and finishing him off in the seventh.

Kaladzic has always been an exciting fighter and his win might move him into contention in the division.

Gvozdyk's comeback will have to start over and at his age (38), I wouldn't be surprised to see "The Nail" consider retirement.

Boxing Challenge

TRS: 17 Pts(3)

Vince Samano: 17 Pts (3)

Ramon Malpica: 17 Pts (4)

Boxing Challenge: Stanionis holds off Butaev

   Since I'll be at work and unable to see the Showtime/PBC PPV broadcast from Arlington, Texas, I decided to get ahead of the game and write about the two fights that Showtime placed on their air from the undercard along with the main event from DAZN and Matchroom from Manchester, England.

I wrote in the preview that the welterweight pairing for a minor belt but importantly the mandatory position in the WBA for the Spence-Ugas winner between Radzhab Butaev and Eimantas Stanionis couldn't miss as an action fight and it turned out to be exactly that as Stanionis won a split decision to place him in line for tonight's Spence-Ugas victor.

Neither fighter scored a knockdown and neither did a lot of moving around the ring, leading to plenty of action and landed punches.

Stanionis landed more and the slightly harder punches against Butaev, who lost a point in the eleventh round for pushing down on Stanionis' head and still fought well against the stronger fighter.

Stanionis used his jab to get inside and work on Butaev and although it's not quite to this level, the Stanionis jab is a power jab and reminded me of how Gennady Golovkin uses his jab as a weapon not as one to probe or use from a distance.

I thought Stanonis was the winner at 116-111, which agreed with one of the winning cards for Stanionis with the other at 117-110, and was very surprised by the 114-113 card for Butaev which seemed way out of bounds.

It will be interesting to see if the WBA decides to strip the Spence-Ugas winner, should they not fight Stanonis next.

A unification fight against WBO champion Terence Crawford might get another allowance but Stanonis is in the picture and he'll be getting his shot sooner or later.

Junior welterweight prospect Brandun Lee was forced to go the ten round distance for the first time by veteran Zach Ochoa and despite getting hit more than he should in the final few rounds, Lee was able to get some good work in and was never threatened by Ochoa, who started to throw punches way too late to challenge Ochoa.

A nice win for Lee, who still has plenty of work to do before moving up a level in opposition but still looked strong enough going the ten rounds.

My score of 98-92 was in line with one judge with the other two scoring 99-91 for Lee.

No judges were needed in Manchester England with welterweight Conor Benn destroying veteran Chris Van Heerden in two rounds.

Benn and Van Heerden each fought well in the first round with both landing good shots but in the second round, Benn crunched Van Heerden with one right-hand bomb, and a few seconds and a strong flurry later, Van Heerden was crumpled in a corner and the referee saw no need for a count.

Benn's ready for bigger challenges but Matchroom really doesn't have a good fit for him right now, unless they want to massively overpay Terence Crawford to defend his WBO title in England, which wouldn't be a good idea anyway as Benn is nowhere near ready for a fighter of "Bud's" talent.

Benn's next opponent that would make sense would be light-hitting and undefeated Brit Michael McKinson, who has only two knockouts and bored watchers to sleep in McKinson's American debut.

Still, Matchroom has both fighters and McKinson is rated higher in the WBO (3rd to 5th) so a win would be worth something but after the fight, the name Amir Khan emerged as a possibility.

That's an awful idea considering what Khan looked like in his knockout loss to Kell Brook and it could get Khan badly hurt, so here is hoping that idea goes by the wayside.

Boxing Challenge

TRS: 56 Pts (4)

Vince Samano: 50 Pts (4)

Ramon Malpica: 46 Pts (4) 

Boxing Challenge: Ennis, Zepeda score First Round KO's

 The boxing weekend saw one mild surprise and two top contenders score impressive first-round knockout wins against good opposition.

The most meaningful fight ended with an upset as Radzhab Butaev surprised Jamal James with a ninth-round knockout to take the minor welterweight title held by James and earn a mandatory chance at WBA champion Yordenis Ugas.

Butaev pressured the 6'2 James throughout the fight and held a slight lead on my scorecard (77-75) entering the ninth round before beginning to hurt James and with James against the ropes, referee Celestino Ruiz stopped the fight.

It was a little premature in my opinion as James was stung a bit but not badly dazed.

Butaev will get a title shot against Ugas or Eimanis Stanionis for the full WBA title.

The WBA has ordered Ugas-Stanionis with the winner to face Butaev but Ugas has asked for an exception to face WBC and IBF champion, Errol Spence.

Should the extension be granted, Stanionis and Butaev could fight each other for the mandatory fight for a Ugas-Spence winner but if it is not granted Ugas has threatened to vacate the WBA belt to fight Spence anyway, which would result in Stanionis-Butaev for the vacant title. 

The co-feature saw the most feared welterweight in the sports as Jaron "Boots" Ennis blew Thomas Dulorme out in one round.

Ennis knocked Dulorme down with a left hook followed by a right hand and Dulorme rose and tried to fight off Ennis but seconds later would be felled by a combination that he couldn't rise from and was counted out.

For Ennis, it was another impressive performance that will make few interested in fighting him, even champions such as Errol Spence and Terence Crawford.

Ennis is rated in the top six by all four organizations but not higher than third by the IBF and its very possible that Ennis may have to wait until 2023 and be a mandatory challenger to get a title shot, which is too bad because other than answering chin questions, which haven't been an issue thus far, Ennis looks to be as strong of a young contender as I've seen in quite a while.

In New York City, junior welterweight contender Jose Zepeda crushed Josue Vargas in one round of a grudge match after a pre-fight buildup that saw punches and kicks exchange from both men and their camps.

Zepeda dropped Vargas in the first round with a left and with Vargas badly hurt, Zepeda battered Vargas into a corner and fired away relentlessly before the referee ended the fight.

Zepeda is ranked second by the WBC and might be placed in fights like these for a while as he waits for  Josh Taylor to vacate his four titles.

No boxing challenge as we didn't get choices, due to a miscommunication.